Penance: From the author of BOY PARTS

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Unfortunately, some good true crime podcasts I’ve listened to [are] so undermined by the presence of aggressive advertising. It’s always been something that I’ve been interested in, but it was something that I was getting increasingly critical of, and my relationship with [it] changed quite a lot while I was writing Penance as well. Even though the sole focus of this book is the crime itself, I could not help but be in awe at the amazing portrayal of the impact of the internet on young minds and how certain interests, while unique, can lead to terrible consequences. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties.

I feel quite lucky that I don’t have more of an ego – or, rather, that my expectations are just permanently on the floor,” she says. Penance is a non-fiction book by Alec Z Carelli, a journalist who was disgraced in the phone hacking scandal. Whereas most contemporary novels feel like variations on a few fashionable themes, Newcastle-born Clark seems oblivious to the latest metropolitan literary preoccupations. penance demonstrates clark’s vast range in writing through multiple perspectives throughout the book.Clark credits that CV with showing her how precarious and rejection-laden writing can be; it meant she entered the industry under no illusions. You can’t help wondering what heights she might reach were she to take an interest in its aesthetic potential, too. EC: I knew that I definitely wanted to have a journalist, and there was a more interesting power differential there with a male journalist.

There's much to think about here from the ethics of true crime, the impact of trauma, occult online followings and Brexit politics. I thought the teen girls and their relationships were so well depicted and showed how bullying, gossip and ‘mean girl’ attitudes can quickly escalate to much worse.So far Clark has chosen to apply her formidable talent to fiction’s ethical problems and possibilities.

Like murder-hungry baby birds, we gobble up all the salacious details that Clark feeds us, but at a cost: The victims in these stories are always more interesting to us as charred corpses than alive. Taking aim at our relationship with true crime, the brutality of teenage girls and classicism, it was easily my favourite read of 2023 so far. I think those spaces are interesting because they are demonstrative of this extreme and quite inappropriate empathy that teenagers can have.One of my friends said, it’s everywhere, there are videos about it that have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views. is a more intriguing question than ‘why are potentially three different men in our community doing this to women they’ve met on nights out? Eliza Clark: I think irony-posting and irony-poisoned internet use are really interesting social features.